New Client Rules

Rule One: If you are perspiring so profusely that you think you absolutely must wipe your face with the hem of your T-shirt, kindly do it outside before you come in. I do NOT want you to stand in front of my desk and expose your wet, hairy belly while you wipe the sweat from your brow.

Rule Two: If you choose to ignore Rule One, please do NOT follow up the face wiping by asking to borrow my pen.

Your cooperation will be deeply appreciated.

Rosedown, rainbows, and reasons to believe

One of the first times I ever met my brother-in-law, before he was offically part of our family, he and my sister came to Baton Rouge to visit, and we took a little sight-seeing trip together. We drove up to St. Francisville, Louisiana, about an hour and a half away from here, and stepped back in time more than 150 years at Rosedown Plantation. It was a magical day. If you follow the link, you might be able to imagine how we lost ourselves for several hours in the beauty of the gardens and the ancient, moss-draped trees.

We were feeling really mellow as we drove back to Baton Rouge. In the distance there was a faint rainbow, and my sister started telling a story about some people she knew who had found themselves standing near the end of the rainbow. My future brother-in-law and I, almost in unison, began telling her all the reasons why the story couldn't possibly be true. We tried to explain about the characteristics of rainbows and water particles and light refraction, but even before we'd finished making our points, we rounded a curve in the road and came upon exactly what we'd told her was impossible to see: the end of the rainbow.

The arc of a brightly colored rainbow came low over the treetops and ended abruptly on the shoulder of the road, less than half a mile from where we were. We watched it with wide eyes and open mouths as we slowed down and drove past it, and then we turned our heads and watched behind us until it was out of sight. It was an amazing part of a wonderful day.

I think that may have been the first day that I saw my sister's husband-to-be let his guard down enough that I could peek behind his "man's man" exterior and catch a glimpse of his softer side, the side that was rapidly winning over my sister. My sister had told me, quoting Julia Roberts' Vivian in Pretty Woman, "I want the fairy tale." On that day, I believed for the first time that she might have a real chance at getting it.

My sister and her husband have been together for a lot of years now. You'll be pleased to know that the "happily ever after" part seems to be coming along nicely.

Dog days

If one dog year equals seven human years, as they say, Kadi and I will be the same age next week when she turns nine. Both of us are past our prime, a little worse for the wear, but still feeling pretty good.

Lately I've been kind of worried about Kadi because she's been drinking excessively and waking me up in the middle of the night to go outside. That's all behavior that started within the last three weeks or so. On two occasions, she didn't even bother to wake me up (maybe she was offended by my profanity when she woke me the previous night) and just quietly peed in the hallway. Considering Kadi's strong sense of propriety, she must have been in desperate straits to do that.

Otherwise, she's seemed perfectly normal, but I took her to the vet this morning just to be sure. It's the first time she's been in the car since I got a new one last August, so she was ready to ride. In the old car, she'd have a barking fit everytime I used the turn signal. This one's quieter and didn't seem to bother her. Other than having to tell her repeatedly to stay in the backseat, our ride into Baton Rouge was fine.

At the vet's office, Kadi ran ahead of me on her leash as if she were going someplace really great and couldn't wait to get there. Apparently, she only likes the lobby, because she started balking when we headed down the hall to the exam room. We had to wait in there for ten or fifteen minutes, during which she quivered and panted and tried unsuccessfully to climb onto my lap. She did find someplace to climb to, though, and the vet laughed when he came in and saw her big yellow body sitting tall in the straight chair next to mine. No cold floor for my girl.

Fortunately, we got good news: no sign of diabetes, which was my main concern. The vet thinks the likely problem is a urinary tract infection. He told me that an animal's instinct, when it feels discomfort "down there," is to drink a lot of water to try to flush it out. Unfortunately, if bacteria are present, the flushing doesn't always do the trick. He put her on antibiotics and said we should see a difference within the next three or four days. If that doesn't work, we'll do blood tests to check for kidney problems. I'm feeling optimistic at this point.

While we were at the vet's office, my younger daughter and her husband came over and cut my grass. They and my older daughter take care of that job for me, and I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am. Heat gets to me in a very short time (one of the many things I have in common with my sister), and fresh-cut grass, although it's one of my all-time favorite fragrances, activates my allergies big-time.

By the time Kadi and I got home, the lawn looked beautiful and there was a brand-new doggy pool in the backyard. We waited until the grass settled down and the temperature dropped a few degrees, then filled the pool for the pupsters. Kadi likes to run as fast as she can from across the yard and jump into the pool with a big splash, and the doggy-smile didn't leave her face for the whole half-hour or more we let them play.

Not an exciting day by anyone's standards, but a nice one nevertheless.

They hadn't seen each other in a coon's age

This is Rocky Raccoon. There should be a trademark symbol next to his name, but I don't know where to find one.

Rocky lives on a shelf in my closet. He's a puppet. His rabbit-disguised-as-raccoon fur is wrapped around a loosely coiled spring, and by manipulating the spring with your finger, you can make him appear to do all sorts of things. For some reason, most people don't seem to notice right away that Rocky has no legs.

I bought Rocky at a magic show in the mid-80s, when I was in a long-term relationship with a man whose hobby was magic and illusions. (He was good at it, too; he made himself disappear sometime in 1989 and I haven't seen him since.) Rocky has never personally been in show business, but he's entertained a few grandchildren in his time--and me. He's entertained me a lot.

It must have been four or five years ago that I was cleaning out some things and stumbled across Rocky, and my first thought was to introduce him to Butch and Kadi. They were super-excited to meet him. Kadi politely sniffed under his tail (she still does that--every single time), and Butch, who was normally a little standoffish with other animals, wagged his own tail blissfully as Rocky rubbed against his face. Neither of the dogs has ever tried to bite Rocky or to play with him like a toy.

Rocky only comes out to visit once every three or four months. When he does, he talks to my dogs in a voice that sounds a lot like mine, except that his is high-pitched and squeaky, and he talks really fast. He mostly says things like, "Hey, Butch and Kadi, how you doin', little buddies?" and "Ooooooh, I'm soooo happy to seeeee youuuuu; let me scratch your ears." Kadi's sniffed under Rocky's tail enough times to know there's no life force there, so she usually just takes a quick whiff to make sure nothing's changed, then exits. But Butch sticks around until I tell Rocky, in my own voice, that it's time to go home.

Now that Rocky's older, he mostly just enjoys his quiet time, resting in between my steam iron and my old straw hat with the brightly colored floral band. But that doesn't mean he's been forgotten. This morning I walked into my bedroom and found Butch standing at the closed closet doors, wagging his tail, waiting patiently. I knew instantly what he wanted. "Do you need to see Rocky?" I asked him, and his tail wagged faster and faster. I took Rocky down and let them visit for a few minutes, then Butch went back into the den, and I left for work.

Sometimes, I guess, you just think about an old friend for no particular reason at all.

News Bites

Around the World
The U. S. Government checked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi off its list yesterday. Good. So that list would be how long now?

Book Critic
It's critical that I move some books out of my house before they take over everything. Deciding how to decrease the volume of my volumes is my own personal Sophie’s Choice.

Entertainment
On the Today show this morning, a representative of People magazine reported that the new daughter of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie appears to have her mother’s lips. Hmmm. Talk about power-nursing.

Fashion
Britney Spears can afford to dress better. So can I. Both of us should consider it.

Food
Lunch today was from our “white-trash” menu: Cold pork ‘n beans scooped up with barbecued potato chips. It's a dirty little secret, but sometimes I’ve just gotta have it.

Gardening
Everywhere I turn, I see a bush that leans way too far to one side, but I’ve been told that nothing can be done about it for a couple more years.

Health
A new medical condition was discovered today when a Louisiana woman, Velvet Sacks, broke out in hives and repeatedly butted her head against the wall. Sacks stated the condition came on suddenly when she turned on her computer and continued to deteriorate as she remained without blog editing access for nearly three hours.

Help Wanted
Stepping-stone edger needed. Must have strong back and mile-wide masochistic streak.

Music
If I were chief of the music police, the song ”Sabre Dance” would only be allowed at the circus. Because if you hear a snippet of it accidentally, it will stay in your head all day. Don't believe me? Follow the link.

Politics
See “Gardening” above.

Religion
For some unknown reason, it popped into my head today that Jesus was a shepherd, not a sheep. That gives me hope that He could relate to those of us who don't just blindly follow where some people try to lead us.

Weather
Just like politics and religion: too hot to discuss in much detail on my friendly little blog.

Hit and run

To lighten things up a bit, let me tell you about my friend "C."

We met through a mutual friend in the late '60s and ended up working together at an East Texas courthouse. "C" was a slender, very pretty girl, with black eyes, olive skin, and long, long, long black hair that always caught everyone's attention. She dressed well, too, in nice dresses and high-heeled shoes.

In those days, shopping in the town where we lived was limited to a handful of stores in the downtown area and another group of stores in a fairly large, L-shaped shopping center near the traffic circle. The shopping center was anchored by Sears at one end and Weingarten's Supermarket waaaaaaaay down at the other end.

One day, soon after I returned to the courthouse from my lunch break, "C" rushed in. She was a few minutes late, and she looked frazzled.

Me: "Where'd you go?"

"C": "I went to the shopping center, and I got hit by a car."

Me: "What do you mean you 'got hit by a car'? You mean your car got hit?"

"C": "No, I mean I got hit. I was walking across the parking lot and a car hit me."

Me: "Omigod, are you hurt? Are you all right?"

"C": "I think I'm fine, but the car bumped me in front of Sears, and I ran all the way to Weingarten's before I could stop."

It's all coming back to me now

Roles were reversed at my house yesterday. The tribute to my sister was actually the second blog entry I wrote that day, after my older daughter persuaded me I'd regret it if I posted the first one.

The first one was written while I still had my knickers in a twist over something that had started out as a little irritating pinprick and then festered in my mind until it seemed to be crying out for me to set the record straight. To my way of thinking, what I wrote was a great piece of work. It was scathing, biting, brilliantly (or so I thought) sarcastic, with a few well-placed zingers that would have shaken my literary middle finger right in the face of the person who'd angered me. Not that that individual would have actually read it, but at the time that seemed to be beside the point.

Fortunately, I had the good sense to realize I needed to let it sit for a little while before spewing my indignity out into cyberspace. During that cooling-off period, I passed it by my daughter, who already knew why I was steaming. She read it and asked me a few questions:

If [that person] were to read this post, are you willing to sacrifice the relationship?

Maybe, I said with a shrug of my shoulders, if it came to that.

Do you think the preachiness of your post might anger some readers you don't want to lose?

Ummmmm...possibly. I suppose. Actually, there was a good chance of it, because preachiness is exactly what had aroused my ire in the first place.

Would telling someone off be worth the fallout you're likely to get by stirring up controversy?

Maybe not...but maybe so. I don't know. I'll have to think about it. I was wavering, but I was still mad. I'd made a lot of valid points in that post, by golly, and I didn't want to waste them.

Then my daughter said something that stopped me cold: Even though I know where you're coming from, I think the tone of this post sounds like the voice I hear when you and I argue about something and you have to have the last word...and that's not the best side of you. That clinched it. She was right.

Because of something I learned a long time ago in a team-building class, I'm usually the one encouraging everybody else to "let it go." Think of the higher value, I say. I know it isn't fair, and I know you're dying to respond, but don't lose sight of your goal. Focus on the best thing you can do right now to make things turn out the way you want them to in the end. Sometimes, that means not saying everything that's on your mind just because you think it needs to be said.

I didn't figure out that piece of wisdom by myself, even though I should have, given the ample experience I'd had with my own words coming back to bite me in the butt. I'd had to be taught. Obviously, it was time for a refresher course. I'm happy to report that it's still good advice, and it was interesting to find myself on the receiving end of it. I could have made things so much worse.

And today? Everything is okey-dokey!

Sistah-friend

These are my favorite pictures of my little sister (on the left in both photos) and me. One was taken in 1951 and the other 10 years ago this summer. In between, we provoked squabbles with each other, slapped and tattled, vied for our mother's attention, and everything else that goes along with sibling rivalry.

For most of our adult lives, we've lived in different states. For years, we'd talk on the phone once in a blue moon, see one another on rare occasions when I went home or she came to visit, and keep up with each other's news largely by relaying it through Mother.

Then, in 1996, we took a trip together for the first time as adults. We went back to our hometown for a family reunion. Shoulder to shoulder, we stepped forward to meet relatives we hadn't seen in nearly 40 years, and we relaxed together as we felt the warmth of their welcome. We visited schools and parks and shared our separate memories of being there long ago. We mourned the fact that our childhood home had long since been demolished to make way for a university tennis court, but we went to that spot anyway and stood together on the very ground where we once rode our bikes, pulled each other in the wagon, and drew hopscotch squares with colorful Missouri rocks. We looked at each other in surprise and fought back tears as an unidentified fragrance from our childhood suddenly wafted through the air and reminded us we were home.

On the trip back to our present-day homes, we stopped overnight in the majesty of the Ozark Mountains. We sat together on the balcony of a Victorian-style bed-and-breakfast inn and soaked up the beauty and tranquility of the evening. We talked about the places we'd been, the people we'd seen, the things that time had changed, and the things it hadn't. We sweltered together in the heat of an un-air-conditioned auto dealership after we encountered car problems. We stopped over and over at fast-food restaurants to use their clean restrooms and bought cold drinks as a thank-you, whether we needed them or not. We got lost. We struggled through mixed-up hotel reservations. We worked it all out. We talked, we drove, we talked some more and drove some more, and we left the miles and the years behind us.

We both knew when we started out that it would be an emotional trip down memory lane, but we had no idea it would be the beginning of our journey together into the future. We talked--and listened--more on that trip than we'd ever done in our whole lives, and we got to know each other as the women we'd become. We discovered that our differences would fit in a thimble and that our similarities are too big to be confined by time or space.

I've always loved my sister, but from that trip forward I've loved her more, and I've learned to appreciate her to a degree that makes my heart swell. She's fun-loving, quick-witted, whip-smart, rock-solid, and beautiful to boot. She may not always agree with everything I do or say, but I'm convinced she'll have my back either way. And I'll have hers.

Last night I e-mailed my sister about a silly little thing that had ticked me off. Mostly, I wrote to her because I wanted to vent to someone who knows me through and through and wouldn't need an explanation as to why my feathers were ruffled.

I got her reply at lunchtime today. As usual, she didn't disappoint me. If she thought I was right, she didn't feel the need to validate my opinion, and if she thought I was wrong, she didn't find it necessary to point out the reasons why. Instead, with one simple, typed sentence, she let me know she heard me--and understood.

Thanks, Sis. Again. I love ya'.

Zoo-ming in

The top three "modern art" images here were captured by cropping, in sequence, the bottom three photos. You might want to try this with your own pictures when you're feeling creative; it was fun to see things in a different way.






That being said, I find the bottom ones way more beautiful.

Think twice, Taskmaster

At work Friday, I called a local attorney who is opposing counsel in a case my boss is working on. He seemed perfectly pleasant, and we had a brief but cordial chat, in the course of which he referred to a specific report that was in his file. I mentioned that we didn't have a copy of that report, and he replied, ever so nicely, "I'll make my secretary fax it to you this afternoon."

It was just a poor choice of words, right? He couldn't possibly still think that way in this day of enlightened feminism. 'Cause I don't get it. Did he think she would object to faxing it to me? I can picture her now, standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a look of resolve on her face. "Hell, no!" she's saying. "No way will I fax that!"

There's a lesson here for any guys who happen to read this blog: Women will do almost anything for you if you ask nicely enough. But if you want to see passive aggression in all its glory, just order us to do something.

My second husband was a construction superintendent who was used to having a couple of hundred big, burly men do his bidding in order to build nuclear power plants and things. It seemed only natural to him, therefore, to kiss me goodbye in the morning and toss off a quick, "Pick up my dry cleaning today." Guess what. I didn't do it. Didn't have a chance. Too busy. Sorry, forgot about it. The next day, after I'd proved to myself that he couldn't control me, I'd go and pick up his dry cleaning. (I wasn't a complete asshole, after all.) All he had to do to get it the first day was to say, "Could you please pick up my dry cleaning today?" Consider it done.

I'm not saying we'd refuse to comply with an occasional directive issued hurriedly or casually. That happens all the time at work, and it's usually just a language short-cut to get the job done faster. At home, I don't think anybody would object to a quick "Scoot over just a little bit" or "Toss me that pillow right there." I'm talking more about a pattern of speech or an attitude that implies more control over another person than might be warranted.

At a stress-management seminar I attended once, the instructor spoke about reducing stress when dealing with employees and with family members. In both cases, he advised, "The first step is to give up your illusion of control." He said that if we desired certain behaviors in those around us, our best bet would be to set up situations (through reasonable requests, rewards and consequences) that would make them desirous of behaving the way we wanted. "Otherwise," he said, "you'll be continually frustrated, because the truth is, after people have reached their teens, you can't really control them."

So, just to be clear, I'm not telling you guys how to talk to the women in your lives. I'm just asking you to consider that you might get better results with a "would-you-please" approach.

By the way, the report we needed was faxed over later in the day. I wonder how he made her do it.

Going bananas!

I've never been much of a fruit eater. An occasional orange, fresh strawberries, an apple once or twice a year and that's pretty much enough fruit for me. Except for bananas. I don't eat bananas often, either, but I buy them fairly regularly. If there are firm, unblemished bananas in the store, bananas with no green ends and no brown spots, some of them are going home with me.

I know perfectly well that I'll only have time to eat one or two bananas before they start getting spots and turning softer than I like. But do I buy one or two? Of course not. I buy four or five. Then I take them home, eat one or two over the next couple of days, and wait until the rest turn dark and disgusting and start leaking onto my kitchen counter. Then, maybe, I'll throw them out.

Back in my "good-little-wife" days, I'd turn overripe bananas into fresh-baked loaves of banana-nut bread. For someone who thinks of carrot cake as a vegetable, that's a good use of bananas! I still enjoy banana-nut bread, but I don't bake much these days. For one reason, it takes time I prefer to use in other ways, and for another reason, I can't be trusted alone with homemade baked goods.

Anyway, back on topic, I've been aware of my excess-banana-buying habit for quite a while, and it's been bothering me. Maybe that's why my subconscious mind helped me figure out how to stop letting bananas go bad on my kitchen counter.

On my way home from work this evening, I picked up a few groceries. It's the first time I've shopped since May 21, according to the blog entry I wrote the next day, so I've gone 12 days without buying any groceries except for one loaf of bread and three 12-packs of Diet Coke. And, no, I didn't buy any bananas today.

Nevertheless, when I got home and unloaded my trunk, I found one white plastic bag containing five very dark, mushy bananas. Evidently, I bought them on my last trip to the grocery store and they never even made it into the house! And I never missed them!

My new method is still wasteful, but I think it's gonna work well for me. All I had to do was toss the bag of bananas directly into the garbage. Easiest cleanup ever.

Take me out to the ballgame

It's been just a few days since Barry Bonds hit his record-breaking home run. I figure that if I'm gonna post another baseball-related entry, I'd better hurry up and do it while baseball is fresh on people's minds.

I apologize in advance for the fact that this story pokes fun at a fat person. I do know that's tasteless, but I'm gonna tell it anyway. I'm a plus-sized woman myself (okay, plus-sized and tasteless), but because of this story, I still chuckle every time I hear America's best-known baseball song.

When my daughter lived in New York, she told me on the phone one night that a guy she worked with had made a confession to her that day. He told her that he'd accepted a date with a girl he didn't like because she had tickets to a baseball game. He said the girl wasn't anybody he'd ever be interested in getting to know better; she annoyed him in general and, on top of that, she was a "fat chick." He said he knew it wasn't right to accept the date under those circumstances, but "you don't know how much I want to see that game." He'd made up his mind to deal with his conscience later, after the date. In the meantime, he'd make sure the girl had a nice time, and he'd also make sure not to lead her on.

Later that same day, my daughter saw the guy again. As he passed her desk, she heard him singing softly:

"Take me out to the ballgame,
take me out with the crowd,
buy me some peanuts
and buy me some peanuts
and buy me some peanuts
and buy me some peanuts
and..."

Greetings from the infirmary

I had a lovely, peaceful holiday weekend until late Monday afternoon, when some kind of "bug" got hold of me and didn't turn loose. For the next 30-plus hours, I relied on the companionship of my good friend John.

I did make an effort to go to work yesterday, but that lasted only about ten minutes before I turned around and headed back home. Once home, I didn't feel like reading or even watching TV, so I slept almost all day long and then on through the night with no difficulty except that created by a furry intruder.

Late yesterday afternoon, my older daughter came over to stay with me. She'd had a wisdom tooth pulled earlier in the day and wasn't in much better shape than I was. We figured that the two of us together had at least a halfway good chance of taking care of our four dogs in the manner to which they've become accustomed, and it actually worked out pretty well. Would have been fine, in fact, had Lucy not been so excited about the idea of a sleepover. She went from room to room all through the night, jumping on and off the beds to check and see if anyone was awake and willing to play.

This morning I felt weak but well enough to go to work, and I've continued to feel better throughout the day. My daughter, on the other hand, called me this afternoon to tell me she now has whatever bug I had yesterday, so she's still stretched out in my guestroom. The virus was bad enough without the complication of an aching jaw, so she totally has my sympathy.

Two people told me today that there's a virus going around, and I know from experience that if there's one within a 20-mile radius, I'll catch it. That being said, I rarely get colds or flu-type illnesses (knocking on wood here), and I almost never miss work.

Which brings me to the point of all this whining: One day in the 80s, I faked being sick to stay home from work. It was the only time in my life I ever did that, but I woke up just too exhausted to deal with all the crap I expected to come across my desk that day. I really did feel guilty, but I picked up the phone in spite of it, called my boss, and told him I "must have a 24-hour virus or something."

The next day, feeling rested and ready to face whatever came along, I went to work. Within the first 30 minutes I was there, three co-workers called in sick. They all said they thought they'd "picked up whatever it was" that I had.

Memorial Day

I place white flowers
on the grave
of one young soldier
boy who gave
his life, my own and
yours to save,
to honor him.

Though I may not
in fact agree
this war is a
necessity,
he bravely fought to
keep us free.
I honor him.

And as I watch the
mothers cry
in anguish while their
children die,
there is not one who
questions why
we honor them.

The bravery with
which they fought
to buy the freedom
others sought
came from within,
could not be taught.
We honor them.

The question I would
ask is for
the leaders who have
chosen war:
How many men must
die before
you honor them?


Note: The photo accompanying this original poem was taken at a Civil War reenactment at Magnolia Mound Plantation, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in November 1997.

Extra! Read all about it!

The photos here, taken in 1949 or ‘50, show me and my grand-father, on the same end of the same sofa, engrossed in what we’re reading. Other than love itself, the love of reading may have been the greatest gift I ever got from my mother and the grandparents who raised me. All of them read for the sheer pleasure of it, and I learned early on that it wasn’t something they had to do; it was something they wanted to do.

My mother and grandfather devoured “murder mysteries,” the paperback crime novels that sold for 25 cents each at the drugstore on the corner and featured gruff detectives who worked long hours out of seedy offices to prove that blondes (or brunettes) in tight dresses had killed their hardworking husbands. If you look at the stack of books in the picture I posted yesterday, you’ll see that some of that rubbed off on me. Today’s thrillers are less formulaic, I think, but probably not by as much as I’d like to believe.

My grandmother mostly read magazines, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, and Redbook. She liked articles and stories that were short enough to finish in between household chores. Mammaw was a “good news” kind of person, and the murder mysteries were not for her.

I reveled in comic books, those featuring Disney characters, of course, and especially Little Lulu and my all-time favorite, Archie. (That devious Veronica still makes me mad.) Once I started school, I moved through Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series and into the "Ginny Gordon” mysteries. Somewhere along the way I read The Island Stallion, Walter Farley's story about a boy and a beautiful wild horse that haunts me to this day. Those books and all the others took me places I’d never otherwise have gone and introduced me to characters and situations I might or might not have bumped into again in the course of my life.

All of us read the newspaper, and I still remember the first news article I ever read. I was only six years old in April of 1949, when three-year-old Kathy Fiscus fell down a well and died, but I’d heard something about it and wanted to find out for myself exactly what had happened. I’m sure some of the words in the article were unfamiliar to me, but I could read enough of them to understand what had happened, and the story of Kathy and the failed but heroic rescue effort moved me to tears.

One of the books in the stack pictured with yesterday's post, The Great Deluge, by Douglas Brinkley, is about the devastation during and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I’ve seen some of the results of Hurricane Katrina firsthand and watched hours and hours of television coverage, but I firmly believe I'll understand it much better after I read about it.

Those of us who live in the internet age are fortunate to have an additional source of reading material: weblogs. Who would ever have believed there’d come a time when individuals across the world, skilled writers or not, would be able to share their innermost thoughts and ideas instantaneously with strangers -– with you and me? And who would ever have imagined how reassuring it would be to read that all those people in all those places, people with different orientations, different lifestyles, and different opinions, have so much in common when it gets right down to the heart of the matter?

I could go on and on, but I'll stop now. I've gotta go read the Sunday paper.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

Well, not exactly, but when Julie Andrews mentioned them in The Sound of Music as she sang about
"favorite things," I knew exactly what she meant. There are no strings attached to the brown paper (cardboad) packages these days, but I still get just as excited to see them.

I splurged recently on a book club order, then, a few days later, ordered a couple of CDs from Amazon.com. Both packages came at the same time.

It was such fun to browse the actual books, not just their catalog descriptons, and to anticipate the pleasure they'll bring me this summer. I read every night at bedtime and take the settings and characters with me into my dreams. (If you have difficulty reading the titles, you can click on the picture to see it in a larger size.)

I don't buy many CDs. Through experience, I've learned that most of them have one or two great songs and a lot of others I wish I hadn't paid for. Of the two I ordered this time, one is a dud, and the other is amazing. It's been my driving music for the past two days, and I could listen to it over and over.

In fact, I'm gonna go listen to it again, because I have a list of errands to run today. I'll be back later to post something a little more substantive, but in the meantime, if you have a minute, check out Joe Cocker's Greatest Love Songs. Be sure to scroll down and listen to a few samples. If you're like me, you'll find yourself wishing you were slow dancing with somebody.

Beautiful bee bait

Honorable foot in mouth

Have you ever heard something come out of your own mouth that stunned you into a horrified silence? And did the person you were speaking to give you a look that said she wasn’t sure she really heard what she thought she heard?

That happened to me. My face still burns when I think about it, and it’s one of those stories that gets passed around at family gatherings a dozen years after the fact. In order not to embarrass anyone else, I’ll use fake names in this confession.

There’s a really nice lady who lives a mile or two down the road from me. We’ve never spent a lot of time together, but our paths cross occasionally, and we’re connected in a way. Her daughter and my daughter married brothers, which makes our grandchildren first cousins. Our granddaughters are just a couple of years apart in age and have shared a number of activities through the years, so this lady and I have sometimes found ourselves at the same events.

I’ve never known her by anything other than her Americanized name, Patty (let’s say), but she was born in Japan. Although she’s been in the U.S. most of her adult life, her speech still evokes visions of kimonos and cherry blossoms. I adore listening to Patty talk. I’ve always been fascinated by foreign accents, and hers is musical, almost. When I listen to her speak, everything else goes out of my head. I know I shouldn’t, but I find myself concentrating on the sound, more than the substance, of what she’s saying. I let her words and phrases roll around in my mind, and I play with them. Silently (and without moving my lips) I practice saying words the way she says them. WARNING: DO NOT DO THIS!

One night after a dance recital, Patty and I ran into each other outside the LSU Union Building and waited together for our daughters and granddaughters to join us. Neither of us had known beforehand that the other’s granddaughter would be dancing, so each of us had brought along a gift for our own grandchild but nothing for the other girl. We held our separate gift bags and chatted for a few minutes about how nice the recital was and how fast our girls were growing up. Once again, I found myself drawn into Patty’s speech patterns. I was enchanted, and as each sentence came out of her mouth, I mentally mimicked it.

Patty, suddenly becoming aware of the gift situation, blurted out, “Oh, no! I not-ta get-ta nut-tin foh Kaaaay-tee!”

To my intense and endless shame, I immediately responded, “Oh, don’t worry about it, I not-ta get-ta nut-tin foh Staaaay-cee.”

Wouldn’t you just die?

Good job, people

Taylor Hicks is the newest "American Idol," and I couldn't be happier. I'm sure those of you who don't watch and couldn't care less are happy, too, because now I can shut up about it.

Which I'll do.

In a minute.

After this.

YIPPEEEEEE!

This will be a difficult post to write...

...because I can't type...fast with one hand...and I have to use...the other hand to press...redial over and over...to vote for Taylor Hicks. So far tonight I haven't...been able to get through, because...of busy signals, but I...will keep trying until...the two-hour voting window...has expired. From the...beginning of this season...of American Idol, my...favorites have been Chris, Taylor...and Katherine. I thought Chris...had the best voice, and...Katherine has a lovely...voice, too, but every time I pictured...myself going to a...concert starring one of...the Idol hopefuls, I was always...smiling bigger at a Taylor...concert. Chris had rock...idol potential, I thought, and...will probably go in...that direction. Katherine has film star...looks, but I have never tapped...my foot to a single Katherine...song, not even the...fast ones. Taylor, on the...other hand, gets my juices...stirring and pumps rhythm into...this aging body. I'm gonna...give it my best shot tonight, boy...just like you did in...your three performances,...and win or lose, you'll...have my vote in the...form of CD purchases...down the road.

To anybody...who reads this post before...10:00 p.m. SDT, please bookmark...it and come back later. Go on...now, go dial 1-866-IDOLS02 and...show Taylor we love...him.

I have an...idea. I'm gonna go grab the...extension phone. With one...in the right hand and...one in the left, maybe...I can redial fast enough to...get at least one vote in tonight.

Edited at 10:25 p.m. to add: I never got past the busy signal. Not one time. I hope I don't cramp up my typing fingers by sleeping with 'em crossed tonight.

Cool dude

It was almost eight o'clock last night before I summoned up the strength of character to drag myself to Wal-Mart. I wouldn't have gone then had I not been out of dogfood, but I'd used up the hurricane-emergency canned dogfood earlier in the weekend and no longer had a backup plan.

It was even more nightmarish at that time of the evening than it would have been earlier in the day. Not as crowded, perhaps, but all the pre-school-aged shoppers were tired, cranky, and prone to letting out sudden, ear-splitting screams. I was at the point of wishing birth control pills could be added to the public water supply until I spotted the little guy in front of me at the checkout stand.

He was probably about five--maybe a tall four--and he was sooooo cute! I'd noticed him in the store earlier, but not because he was one of the screaming, crying, whining kids. Au contraire. He looked like "Joe Cool," trailing casually behind his mama in his jeans and oversized, red-and-navy-striped rugby shirt. His hair was styled in beginner-dreadlocks, and to complete his Lenny Kravitz persona, he wore a pair of wraparound sunglasses. The lenses were smeared with fingerprints, and one earpiece was wrapped in grey duct tape and barely hanging on.

When I saw him again at the checkout stand, he was no longer wearing the glasses. He still wasn't complaining, but he was beginning to squirm a bit and his frequent coughing made it obvious he wasn't feeling too well. And then romance blossomed.

The family in line next to us included a little girl who was about a head shorter than our line's little Rastafarian boy, and she took an immediate fancy to him. She moved over closer until she stood about two feet away from him, smiled her biggest, brighest smile, and silently watched him. When his mother noticed the little girl and pointed her out to him, he whirled around to face her. The cough was immediately cured, and the squirming was gone. He stood perfectly still and studied the little girl for a moment. Then slooooowly, he twisted his body away from her and reached into his pocket. Out came the cool shades. He put them on carefully and, apparently satisfied that his "look" was complete, turned back around, cocked his head ever so slightly, and posed once more for his admirer.

Stinging critter-cism

It was so nice of this wasp to stand still for a moment so I could capture his digital essense. (How in the world did I ever get along without this camera?)



Now all I have to do is destroy his home and family, and we'll be all set.

Ta-dah! A "chicken" post

I've been checking Patsy's daily posts about chickens (love those new baby chick pics, by the way) and feeling woefully inadequate in the poultry department. Lo and behold, I found this poem, written waaaaay back in my corporate days. I realize Patsy's chickens are much nicer than the one I wrote about, but this is pretty much all that's in my chicken repertoire:

FOWL MOOD

Banty rooster puffs his chest
in silk tweed suit or feathered breast,
declaring he’s the very best
to anyone who’ll hear him.

In barnyard or in boardroom, he
proclaims superiority
and clucks and crows incessantly
that others should revere him.

He struts and flaps his wings a bit
to compensate for lack of wit
and stirs up dust and chickenshit,
befouls whatever's near him.

Baby Face

It’s funny how the little things stick with you, things nobody would expect you to remember.

In the Spring of 1948 my mother took my sister and me from our home in Missouri to Chicago, Illinois, where my father was stationed in the military. Mother had already filed for divorce, and this trip was a last-ditch (ultimately unsuccessful) effort at reconciliation, although I'm sure I didn't know that at the time.

We were in Chicago for approximately three weeks, during which we stayed in two different hotels. Mother told me years later that the hotels were awful, with garbage littering the halls. For other reasons, too, the trip was a nightmare for her, but the few memories I have of it are good ones.

The first place we stayed in Chicago was a small room with twin beds that pretty much filled it up. It must have been confining for a young woman with a five-year-old and a toddler. What I remember, though, is the good time I had sitting on one of the beds and using red plastic safety scissors to cut shapes out of slices of white bread. It was a really fun thing to do, and I was kind of surprised that Mother was letting me do it. I also recall eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The taste of the waffles there (my first maybe?) set the standard for every waffle I’ve ever eaten since.

Our second hotel room was much larger, at least from a five-year-old’s perspective. I vaguely remember beds and chairs, but the big attraction was a roll-top desk. I loved that desk. I’ve played “office”–-or worked in one--practically my whole life. I wonder if that desk got me started.

Our room in the second hotel was a couple of stories up from the ground floor, but the windows opened wide (no air conditioning back then), and I remember sitting in the open window, my arms folded and propped on the windowsill. Both the warm sunshine and a cool breeze kissed my face as I watched the hustle and bustle on the street below, and somewhere outside, not too far away, someone’s radio played this song:

Baby Face,
You've got the cutest little
Baby face,
There's not another one
Could take your place,
Baby face,
My poor heart is jumpin’,
You sure have started somethin',
Baby face,
I'm up in heaven
When I'm in your fond embrace,
I didn't need a shove
Cause I just fell in love
With your pretty baby face.


“Baby Face” was recorded in 1948 by Art Mooney & His Orchestra
Words & music by Benny Davis & Harry Akst

UPDATE - 3/23/2013:
I came across this post today, did a quick check on YouTube, and learned that "Baby Face," which wasn't available when I wrote the above blog entry, has since been posted on YouTube. Thanks to TheLimePopsicle for putting it up there. Now you can listen to it if you want to.

Welcome home, I think

What a weird 10 minutes I just spent. I drove up to my carport after work and noticed a huge bird sitting on top of the next-door neighbor's shed, just on the other side of my driveway. I grabbed the camera, sneaked around the back of the house, and managed to get half a dozen shots of this peahen before it ambled down the other side of the shed roof.

Back inside, the dogs were protesting loudly that I hadn't allowed them to go with me. I let them outside and started uploading the peahen photos, and in about three minutes, they were back. I brought them in, gave them treats, and turned back toward the computer, then heard choking and gagging sounds behind me. I turned around to see Butch hunching his shoulders and trying to expel the big jerky strip he'd inhaled without chewing. He was obviously in distress and couldn't catch his breath. I began doing what I guessed to be the doggy-version of the Heimlich maneuver (during which time Kadi tried her best to wedge her big yellow-orange body between Butch's and mine), and the jerky strip popped back into Butch's mouth--and he promptly tried once more to swallow it whole. He choked again, and I Heimliched again, and eventually he began breathing normally and chewing the big lump that had landed back in his mouth. Scared the crap outta me!

He's fine now. He asked to go back outside, so now he's happily walking the fenceline, wagging his tail and trying to attract the attention of the neighbor.

The peahen, by the way, isn't a total rarity in our neighborhood. There's a patch of woods across the road from my house. Behind that patch of woods is a bird sanctuary, so we get strange feathered visitors every now and then. I like that.

And she wasn't even a blonde

I was thinking today of an old friend, "D", who moved away several years ago. Lousy correspondent that I am, I've lost touch with her, but we shared a lot of laughs in our time together. "D" was a super-bright woman, extremely intelligent under normal circumstances, but she did admit to an occasional mental lapse. Since I don't know where she is, and she doesn't know I'm here, I'll share this story at her expense:

One evening "D" and her husband were relaxing outside, enjoying a cool drink, when he suddenly stood up and walked to her car. He leaned down, rubbed his hand across the top side of one of her brand new tires, and pointed out a bad scrape.

He: "What happened to your new tire?"

She: "I have no idea. I've never seen that before."

He: "Did you run over something in the last day or two?"

She: "Noooo...well, I rubbed against the curb, but that would have been on the bottom."

Resusci-Annie and the big, bad boss

I hadn't thought of this story in years, but it came up in conversation today and I need to tell it now, before I forget it again.

In the mid-70s my family lived on Long Island, New York, and I worked in the marketing department of a well-known fast food restaurant chain. My direct supervisors were nice guys, but the head honcho was one of the most arrogant men (he was second most, actually) I ever met. On top of that, he had a beastly temper, snarling and snapping every word he spoke. Most of us just did our best to stay out of his way.

One day, to the surprise of everyone there, a Resusci-Annie dummy was delivered to the office. We learned later that Annie was to be used in training restaurant personnel how to do chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but on that day we had no idea what she was or why she was there. All we knew was that someone had delivered a suitcase, somebody else had opened it, and there inside, all folded up, was a dead-looking blonde with a bad haircut. Annie's plastic body was dressed in a polyester jogging suit that had fake white tennis shoes attached to the ends of the empty legs.

As luck would have it, on the day Annie arrived, the big chief was not expected to be in the office. It didn't take long for creative marketing minds to run wild. In a matter of minutes, Annie was ensconced in the boss's luxurious private office, reclining comfortably in his enormous, expensive leather chair. Her empty pants legs stretched out before her, one crossed casually over the other, and her tennis-shod feet rested on his desk. One plastic hand held the telephone, the other had a cigarette wedged between its fingers.

About ten of us surrounded Annie, laughing and admiring our cleverness, when the receptionist gave us a heads-up that the boss had returned unexpectedly and had just stepped off the elevator. In your whole life, you never saw people scatter any faster than we did that day, and by the time the boss walked through the front door, all of us were back in place and studiously taking care of business. All of us except Annie, that is; we'd had to abandon her.

As usual, the boss didn't speak to anyone as he entered his inner sanctum and closed the door behind him. We all braced for an immediate explosion, but it didn't come. Heads stayed down, and eyes started sending nervous, questioning glances. For about five minutes, we heard nothing.

All of a sudden, the door burst open and out he came, the lifeless body of Resusci-Annie in his arms. He charged across the floor into the middle of the secretarial pool. There, as jaws dropped, he raised Annie high above his head, then dashed her to the floor. Face red and eyes bulging, he glared at the jumbled heap of Annie. All eyes were glued to the scene and there was a shocked, dead silence, until he growled, in his most menacing voice, "Now, when I say 'type faster,' goddammit, I mean type faster!"

I love being a mom...

...but I've always thought Mother's Day was a trumped-up holiday designed mainly to profit florists and card companies. Maybe I feel that way because I'm lucky, because my kids show their love in various ways all year long, and it feels kind of like overkill to have a special day set aside for it.

Nevertheless, I racked up today! I'd told my girls there wasn't anything I wanted or needed, and darned if they didn't come up with exactly what I wanted and needed: a book on photography, another on creating websites, and the absolutely perfect camera case.

My older daughter remembered that I'd recently mentioned I'd like to learn more about HTML code, so she got me this book. Not wanting to offend me on Mother's Day with the "Dummies" part of the title, and being the creative person she is, she modified the cover to look like this:


She also changed the spine to read: "Creating Web Pages for Mommies." Cute, huh?


In the early afternoon, my granddaughter and her fiance had us over to their new home, which I hadn't seen until today. It's beautiful. We stuffed ourselves on boiled crawfish and laughed almost to the point of tears as we told stories on one another. There's nothing I enjoy more than the high of a good belly laugh, and my family is full of natural comedians.

Now I'm home, resisting the temptation to take a nap. I still have the whole Sunday newspaper to read, and tonight's finale of Survivor will wrap up a perfect day. Thanks again, kiddos!





P.S. Happy Mother's Day, Wanda June! I miss ya'.

Heeeeeey batter batter batter batter

Thinking about it, I can almost feel the summer heat. My grandfather sat on the front porch, smoking hand-rolled Bull Durham cigarettes, listening intently to the play-by-play of the St. Louis Cardinals as the distinctive voice of Harry Caray wafted through the open window. Like lightning bugs, fresh corn on the cob, and the swimming pool at Fassnight Park, baseball on the radio was a natural part of summer in my childhood.

The team pictured here includes my father, Paul (front row, second from left), and his older brother, Harold (front row, far right). They may not have had much in the way of uniforms or equipment, but these boys had heart. This photo was taken (about 70 years ago) because they were the city champs that year.

My mother, too, loved baseball, especially the Houston Astros. On a table next to her favorite chair, she kept a notebook in which she religiously recorded the stats of each game she watched. After she died, my brother honored her with an "in memorium" brick at Houston's Enron Stadium, where the Astros played. I couldn't imagine anything she'd like more.

Somehow, I missed the baseball gene that has blazed a trail through my family for generations. But I'm a carrier. I passed it on.

As I write this, my younger daughter and her family have just returned from Lafayette, Louisiana, where my grandson's high school team had a playoff game. My daughter loves baseball so much she would snort it if she could. She and her family follow the children's teams wherever they go, then spend the rest of their summer in Alex Box Stadium with the LSU Tigers.

My grandson, shown catching here, has played ball almost his whole life. His Dixie Boys League team made it to the nationals a few times, and his love of the game keeps him playing still.

Even though the baseball bug has never bitten me personally, I have to recognize and respect a game that's brought so much joy to so many people since the early 19th century. Today my thoughts are with all the boys and girls of summer in my family -- past and present. I love your spirit and enthusiasm.

Shutting down

I click my mouse on the red “turn off” button, and in mere seconds, Microsoft’s musical tones signal that the shut-down process has begun. For the rest of the night, at least, I’ve left cyberspace and returned to my other plane of existence.

The instant those musical notes hit the air, I hear other familiar sounds: the “whufffffff” of large dogs rolling over on leather cushions, one on the futon just across the room and another on the sofa all the way in the living room. I hear toenails scrabbling as eight paws hit the floor. Jingling tags tell me Butch and Kadi are stretching and shaking off the sleep that gripped them only seconds ago. Before I’m out of my chair, both of them are moving toward me, tails wagging. To them, the musical shut-down tones mean the beginning of our nighttime ritual. “Mom’s finished,” they seem to be thinking. “Oh, boy!”

I open the back door to let them out into the yard one last time. Butch waits on the patio while Kadi heads into the grass and finds the perfect spot to squat. Then, in spite of his sightlessness, he makes a beeline to that exact spot and lifts his leg to cover Kadi’s scent with his own.

While they’re outside, I turn off lamps and the TV, carry Butch’s favorite big, round, corduroy-covered bed from the den to “our” room, and put on my nightgown. Before I finish, I hear them back at the door. Butch scratches it with his paw while Kadi stands back and waits. I open the door to let them in, and Butch doesn’t stop for even a moment. He trots past me and the big bookcase, hooks a wide right into the dining room and around the table, passes through the gate of our indoor picket fence, makes a hard right turn and runs the remaining distance into the bedroom. There, he does a quick one-eighty to stand facing the doorway and wait for me.

Kadi, in the meantime, stays on my heels, watching every move I make to be sure I don’t forget the “big ol’ biscuits” that are their standard bedtime treat. She watches me open the bag, then moves in to check my hand: “Yup, she’s got ‘em.” Satisfied, she follows closely while I turn off the overhead lights. As I close the gate behind us (to keep her from sneaking in to sleep on the forbidden soft-yellow chair), she runs ahead to the bedroom doorway and stands at attention beside Butch. They get their biscuits and eat them while I brush my teeth, then I set the alarm and we settle in for the night.

We are creatures of habit. The Microsoft music is Pavlov, and all three of us are his dogs.

IDOLiked to see Katherine go home...

...so now I'm really bummed. Every one of the final four American Idol contestants has a lot of talent, but I don't think Katherine is in the same league with Chris, Taylor and Elliott. She's a beautiful girl (even though she does have the shoulder span of a linebacker) and she has a very nice voice. She'd be fun to watch as the next Kelly Ripa (a/k/a the next Kathie Lee Gifford). But, people, Chris Daughtry is an awesome singer. What have you done?!?

The only way I can rationalize the shocking results of tonight's show is to believe that a lot of the voters assumed Chris was safe and threw their votes to Katherine, who was in danger after last night's performance. That coulda happened. Tragically stupid, but possible.

In spite of his unfortunate elimination, I have the utmost faith that Chris is gonna go on and do great things, music-wise. He's got the whole package.

Elliott Yamin, too, can have a good career, I think. He seems to be a sweet, sweet guy with a huge heart. He's easy to listen to (if you like easy listening), and Billy Joel can't hold on to the "America's-favorite-singing-elf" title forever.

That leaves me rootin' for the eminently entertaining Taylor Hicks. Come on, Homeboy, I'm countin' on you to really bring it next week.

Blog brightener from the Baton Rouge Zoo

A really good guess, if you see what I mean

One segment on this morning's Today show featured an elementary school class in which the students had elected to use their recess time to learn Braille. They were doing this in support of two visually impaired classmates. For obvious reasons, this story made me smile, and it produced a second wave of smiles by reminding me of something my sister once told me.

A few hurricane seasons back, my sister and her extended family were forced to evacuate inland from their Texas Gulf Coast homes. They ended up staying at a multi-story hotel. My niece was riding up in the elevator with her son, "J.C.", who was about 7 at the time, when he noticed the Braille markings on the elevator buttons. As nearly as I can remember the story, their conversation went something like this:

J.C.: "Look, Mama, these buttons have those bumps on them that you touch if you can't see."

J.C.'s Mom: "Um-hmm, do you know what that's called?"

J.C.: "Uhhhhhhh, I don't know, hand-eye coordination?"

Hindsight

On a warm, spring Saturday when I was 12, I'd been given permission to ride the city bus to meet a friend for an afternoon movie. It wasn't the first time I'd be riding the bus alone, but it was the first time I wouldn't have to report to an adult at the other end of the line.

I can't even remember which friend was in on this scheme, but I do recall that we'd arranged to meet two boys (suave, mature 12-year-olds) at the movies. We knew we didn't technically have dates with them, but we felt pretty grown-up just because we'd be sitting next to members of the opposite sex.

Tony R., the boy who was to be my "movie-partner," was a neighborhood kid I'd known from first grade on. He'd always been just a schoolmate, never even a playmate and certainly never anybody I'd considered boyfriend material. He wasn't bad looking, though, and in my mind on that day, I was woman, he was man.

I gave a lot of thought to what I'd wear and finally chose a simple cotton dress that my mother had made. It was a medium-purple cotton, constructed of two A-shaped panels, front and back sewn together at the sides, each panel gathered at the top onto a white band. The white bands tied together at the shoulders to hold the dress up, and there was a third white band that gathered up all the fabric and tied around the waist. It was a little girl's dress. In fact, I'm pretty sure my eight-year-old sister had one just like it. Because I was a young girl, the dress would have been appropriate had I not chosen to accessorize it the way I did.

For years, I'd admired my mother's opal jewelry, its strands of large stones sparkling yellow and pink and purple, each stone completely surrounded by orchid-colored rhinestones that exactly matched my little cotton dress. My mother wore it only for fancy occasions. The big clip-on earrings pinched, so I didn't bother with them, but I smuggled the necklace and bracelet into my pocket. On my walk to the bus stop, I put them on and knew with absolute certainty that I looked stunning.

Nothing at all memorable happened at the movies. The boys were goofy, as 12-year-old boys usually are, and Tony didn't even seem to notice how sophisticated I'd become since he'd seen me at school the day before. After the movie we went our separate ways. I put the jewelry back in my pocket and rode the bus home, where I slipped it safely back into my mom's jewelry box. As far as I know, nobody was ever the wiser about the jewelry or about the boys.

For some reason, that day has stuck in my head. Although nobody told me I looked ridiculous, it didn't take long for me to realize that I had, and it's bugged me all these years. Not that that's the last time I ever made a fool of myself, no indeed, but that I felt so extremely confident while looking like a little girl playing dress-up.

Even now, long after I've learned to see the humor in the situation, if I think about that day too long, the self-doubt starts creeping in. Am I still completely clueless? Are there still occasions when I do stupid things of which I am totally unaware? If I live long enough, will there come a time in my 80s when I look back and cringe at what a jerk I was in my 60s? God, I hope not.

No doubt this was my fault...

Sorry, Sis!

Honk if you love geeses

I just got off the phone with my sister. She and her husband have a beautiful home in East Texas. Their yard backs up to a lake, and when I've been there, I've enjoyed the peacefulness of sitting outside, watching the ducks swim by and an occasional fish jump out of the water. Don't let this idyllic setting fool you, though; nice as it is, it's not trouble-free.

While we were talking, my sister heard a rapping noise. She went to investigate and found a well-fattened goose pecking persistently on her back door, looking for a breadcrumb handout. She had to shoo him away three times while we talked. By the end of our conversation, she was thinking she might like him better roasted.

This wouldn't be so funny, except our mama raised city girls. I'm still laughing.

His No. 1 Concern

Just finished watching "America's Funniest Videos," in spite of the fact that I had no intention of watching it. I never watch it intentionally, but if I don't change the channel immediately, I somehow get sucked into it again. Anyway, seeing the usual bunch of take-a-hit-in-the-groin clips reminded me of my grandson.

He's 16 years old now, a big guy who plays baseball and football and suffers his share of sports injuries with courage and dignity. When he was little, though, he was much more concerned about the hazards of this ol' world.

He was about four or five when we drove past the framework of a large home under construction. He craned his neck to take a longer look and said, "What kind of wood is that? That grey wood?"

"That's not wood," I replied. "It's steel."

"What is steel?" he asked, and I explained that steel is a very, very hard kind of metal, so hard that it would make the house much stronger than it would be if it were made of wood.

He thought about that for a moment, pressed his lips together and shook his head slowly from side to side. "Mmmmmmm," he said. "Sure would hurt your privates if you fell on steel."

War babies, reunions, and letters from home

This picture was taken in 1946, within a month or two of exactly 60 years ago, and these two little girls are the daughters of American soldiers. The child on the left is me, and the other little girl is my cousin, the daughter of my father's sister. I was born a little less than a year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and this little cousin was born about 16 months after me.

As nearly as we can figure it, we haven't seen each other since about 1956. Separated by miles and years, we've come together recently through e-mails, and for the past few days she's been giving me a daily synopsis of what she's been reading -- and I am enchanted.

Unlike my own parents, whose marriage didn't last much beyond the war, my cousin's parents have stayed married all these years. And the marriage isn't the only thing to survive; they've saved all the letters they wrote to each other during World War II. Their children have organized the letters chronologically, and my cousin is reading them and passing on pertinent bits and pieces to me. Her e-mails plunge me back into history, letting me see it on a personal level for the first time through the eyes and words of my aunt and uncle.

My mom and my aunt hung out together while their husbands were away, so sometimes my mom and I were mentioned in my aunt's letters. It's fun to read about their daily lives and the things they did together to pass the time. What's really interesting, though, is hearing about the experiences of the soldiers in the field.

In September of 1944, my uncle wrote about a week-long ocean voyage that ended when his company arrived in France. Within a day after landing, he learned that my dad's company was less than a mile away. My uncle walked there and found my dad. Can you imagine how great it was for these men to find family so far from home?

In the 1990s, my dad talked to me on several occasions about the war, and each time he talked about it, he cried. It wasn't until that late in his life that I had any inkling of the long-term effects of his war experiences. He didn't go into too many details, but he made me understand that war really is hell. From that frame of reference, I was incredibly moved when reading of his reunion with his brother-in-law in France, and their adventures together over the next few days.

God bless my aunt and uncle for saving their letters. God bless our soldiers.

Am I the last person in the free world...

...to read Dan Brown’s most famous novel?

I bought The DaVinci Code months ago in response to all the hype, but for some reason I’ve kept moving it back in my books-to-read-soon pile in favor of other titles. I guess I thought the gimickry of it was what made it so popular, but now that I am reading it, it’s hard to put down. Now, I feel foolish that I didn’t start it sooner.

...to discover Buffalo-style hot wings?

Why I never tried these until recently, I couldn’t begin to tell you, but I’ve made up for lost time since my daughter introduced me to them a couple of months ago. So far, I’ve sampled hot wings from about five different places. You know which ones I like best? The ones you can buy in a big bag in the freezer section at Wal-Mart and heat in your oven. They’re distributed by Tyson Foods. Really, really good! (And, by the way, Tyson is where Patsy, whose birthday is today, used to work.)

...to see not even a single Star Wars movie?

Whatever. I can live with that.

Have you seen this weed?

Yesterday I wrote about animal pests, and today, to demonstrate my great versatility, I've moved on to pests of the plant variety. I think I might have one of those, too. Not sure.

You see, I read Mike's post about his battle with the wicked Oxalis plant and began to worry that the delicate little yellow flowers scattered about my own backyard might be Oxalis, too. I'd never worried about them before--never given them much thought one way or the other, actually--but a seed of doubt had been planted in my fertile mind.

I commented on Mike's blog to thank him for alerting me to the potential for damage, and in response he gave me the additional information that Oxalis is sometimes known as Sour Grass and is actually kind of tasty.

So now I've put the worry on hold and have settled for the moment on confusion. I don't think Sour Grass is what I have. I remember chewing on Sour Grass dozens of times in both Missouri and Texas, and it was different from what I have here in Louisiana. What I knew as Sour Grass had clusters of three smooth-edged, heart-shaped leaves. The stuff I have now is similar in size and also has clusters of three leaves, but as the picture above shows, my current plant's leaves are pointy, with ragged edges. The flowers are a little different, too (aside from the fact that the one pictured was smooshed in my scanner), with narrower leaves than the Sour Grass I remember.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the berries. I don't know whether one plant makes the little yellow flowers and the berries, or whether there are two weeds, with similar leaves, vying for the same spot of ground. Everywhere the little yellow flowers were, though, there were also tiny, strawberry-looking thingies, each about the size of the nail on my pinky finger. I'm saying "were" because there are almost no flowers left and not one single berry, and I hadn't even noticed they were gone. The picture at left shows what it all looked like a couple of months ago.

I'll add, in case it provides a clue, that the plant that's in my yard grows very close to the ground. I suppose I could also give it the taste test, but I'll pass, if you don't mind. There are too many dogs in my backyard.

So what do you think, Mike? Does this look like your Oxalis? Any ideas, you gardeners out there?

Uninvited houseguests

For the second time in as many weeks, there’s a lizard in my house. The one shown here posed for the photo-op, then jumped down onto a book, so I quickly picked up the book and dumped him outside.

The more recent intruder, however, was too fast for me and didn't land on anything portable. He was on the outside of the glass storm door, casing the joint, when Kadi spotted him and barked to alert me to his presence. (Her mission in life is to actually catch one of the little green suckers.)

I made the mistake of opening the door to let Kadi out, thinking she’d scare the lizard away, and she did. He ran away from her. He ran as fast as he could around the edge of the door and into the house. I watched him race across the den in a green flash, and the last time I saw him, he was in the dining room. He leaped from the wall onto the back of a chair, then disappeared under the table. For a split second, I thought about going under there, but the idea of getting tangled up in all the dining chairs with a leaping lizard was more than I wanted to tackle.

I’ll admit to being kind of spooked by the idea that he’s around here somewhere, meandering over my things at his leisure. I’m not afraid of these little lizards, and as long as I see this one before he sees me, everything will be fine. But I don’t like the idea that we might surprise one another, which could make him jump on me.

And if Kadi spots him first? There go the table lamps!

Isn't Mother Nature grand?

Thought you might enjoy this gardenia picture that my younger daughter snapped in my backyard yesterday. The blossoms smell even more wonderful than they look, and the bush is full of them. I was afraid last night’s storm, which turned the yard into a pond for several hours, would wash away all the blooms, but that didn’t happen. Lovely Lucy, who has decided that gardenias are the tastiest treats ever, will be delighted.

Today I'm keeping my shirt on

This morning, sleeping late, I dreamed another version of a dream I’ve had several times before: the finding-yourself-topless-in-public dream. This time I was in the backseat of my younger daughter’s car, going to lunch with her and her friend from work, when I glanced down and discovered that I’d overlooked putting on either a bra or a blouse before I left home that morning. This was all highly shocking and distressing to me, though not totally inconceivable, given some of my past fashion lapses.

Nobody else seemed to have noticed, thank goodness, but I worried that it was just a matter of time. We passed a little strip mall (no pun intended), and I suggested that we pop into a clothing store there to check the sales before we ate lunch. Fortunately, my companions agreed, and I tried to cover myself with my big purse as we left the car and went into the store.

Wouldn’t you know it? This was a children’s clothing store--nothing to fit me--and there were lots of moms and kids in there who passed by me as I hid behind a rack of Osh Kosh B’Gosh. My daughter and her friend were taking their time, excited about the good sale prices, but I just wanted to get the heck out of there. Still, though, nobody in the store gave me a second look.

In the dream, I was thinking to my anguished and embarrassed self, “I’ve dreamed about this, but I can’t believe it’s actually happening.” Isn’t that weird? My dream self was aware of having dreamed this experience previously, which only served to make this dream seem all the more real.

I can’t tell you how glad I was when my real-life phone rang and woke me up. The fact that this is apparently a very common dream theme did little to diminish the vestiges of anxiety that lingered until well after breakfast.

Dumb-brained Melody

As sung by the Righteous Bloggers

1ST VERSE:

Oh, my head is trying
to conjure up a post
that's clever and smart.
My brain cells are dying,
my blog is surely toast,
I can't seem to start.
I need ideas,
I need ideas,
God speed ideas to me.

CHORUS:

Only stupid thoughts
cross my mind, cross my mind,
only stupid thoughts I won't write.
Where's that good idea
I can't find, I can't find?
Where's that good idea for tonight?

SECOND VERSE:

I could post more photos
of flowers or my dog,
I've done that before.
Those posts got no comments,
the folks who read my blog
are easy to bore.
I need ideas,
I need ideas,
God speed ideas to me.

CHORUS:

Only stupid thoughts
cross my mind, cross my mind,
only stupid thoughts I won't write.
Where's that good idea
I can't find, I can't find?
Where's that good idea for tonight?

THIRD VERSE:

Oh, I know what I'll do,
I'll write a silly verse
to fill up some space.
Might not entertain you
but I have posted worse
and kept a straight face.
I nee-ee-eed ideas,
I-I-I-I nee-ee-eed ideas,
Go-o-od speeeeeeed ideas to-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo me-ee-ee-ee-ee.

South Louisiana's teeth: grittin', grindin' and gnashin'

The drive from home to my dentist's office in Baton Rouge used to take 30-35 minutes. Today it took an hour and 25 minutes. The rain may have caused part of the problem, but the larger issue was traffic generated by the post-Katrina population explosion. The increased traffic is still depressing, but it's no longer unexpected. Because I'd started out 50 minutes earlier than normal, I was only five minutes late for my appointment. Fortunately, everybody else was late, too, so I didn't keep my dentist waiting.

When I finally got in the chair, the dental assistant commented on the changes in the office since I'd been there last summer. She said they have almost twice the number of appointments now as they did a year ago. As a result, the sole practitioner I've been seeing for the past 24 years has had to add another dentist to the staff.

I asked the assistant if most of the extra appointments are people who moved here because of Hurricane Katrina, and she said almost none of the increase is due to new patients. Instead, she told me, what they're seeing is an alarming number of stress injuries in their old patients. She said they've never before seen so many broken teeth, cracked teeth, and crowns dislodged--almost entirely due to tension and stress.

The dental assistant also told me about driving with her husband this weekend out to the area where I live. She said that in that short trip on the interstate they were astonished at the chances other drivers were taking, the speed and recklessness they saw over and over. My daughter and I have spoken frequently about that same phenomenon. It's scary out there these days.

I feel so sorry for the people whose homes and families were devastated, and I'll be eternally grateful that my loved ones weren't counted in that number. But the wind and water damage was only the beginning. Even we fortunate ones have lost our community as we knew it.

It's a good thing our homes are intact, because we don't go out nearly as often as we used to. It's just too much of a hassle. There aren't enough restaurants, supermarkets, drugstores, to accommodate all the extra people. There aren't enough roads, schools, teachers, doctors, dentists. Everybody is under stress.

But just in case you wondered, my teeth are in no worse shape than they were last time they were checked; no stress injuries to be found. You want to know my secret? Instead of gritting my teeth and holding all that tension in my mouth, I keep my jaws loose and limber. My method for doing that is to mutter "asshole" under my breath at least every three minutes while I'm driving.

Rainy nights, dead batteries, and fame at the Western Sizzlin'

Wouldn't you know, after weeks on end of dry weather, the sky opened up about the time I got off work, and for the next three hours we had a dazzling display of lightning, accompanied, of course, by the Heavenly Thunder Orchestra, featuring drums and cymbals. In the middle of it all, my daughter and I had to use jumper cables to breathe enough life into her dead battery to get us to the Wal-Mart automotive department, the only place we knew of to get a battery replaced after hours.

They told us at Wal-Mart that we'd have to wait for up to three hours, so we decided to grab a bite to eat. My daughter's doing the low-carb thing right now (doing it splendidly, I might add--or "Splenda-ly"), so we opted to duck across the street to the Western Sizzlin'. We knew the steak wouldn't be memorable, but we also knew we wouldn't feel too conspicuous in our rain-dampened clothes and hairdos.

While we were eating dinner and drying out in the rope-and-saddle ambience, I remembered a family story about the "color-the-cow" contest the local Western Sizzlin' used to have. They'd give the kids a couple of crayons and a coloring-book-style picture of a cow, and the kids could then turn in their colored pictures at the cash register. Once a week, the restaurant would randomly choose a winner. The prize? A free meal for the child, when accompanied by a paying adult, of course.

Well, there's a pretty little teenager in our family who won that color-the-cow contest when she was about seven years old. Her daddy told us about taking her back to the restaurant a couple of weeks later to claim her prize. He said she was a happy little girl as they walked across the parking lot. She held his hand, smiled sweetly, and said, "You know, I bet they're in there looking out the window and saying, 'Ohhhhh, there's that girl that won the coloring contest. We've been wondering when she was gonna come in.'"

It all depends on how you look at it

On Saturday I took this picture of the sky over my rooftop. I'd been in the backyard photographing the dogs and snapped this shot on my way into the house because I thought the light was pretty.


Henry Miller said, "The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself."

I loaded the picture onto my computer and, as I paid close attention, I thought I saw more than the light. I rotated the image to look at it from a different angle, and that's when this majestic, ethereal horse appeared.



John Lubbock said, "What we see depends mainly on what we look for."


So I looked again and saw the shadowy figure of a man, a man in a cape to be precise, standing to the immediate right of the great white horse, his head at the base of the horse's neck. I've increased the contrast here to help you see him better.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus."

Like I said, it all depends on how you look at it.

Lola was once a working girl

This photo of my maternal grandmother is one of my most treasured possessions. It was taken at the telephone exchange in Waynesville, Missouri in 1917, two years before she met my grandfather. In 1984 she wrote to my older daughter about work and marriage:

"I was so happy to get your letter, and lets keep it up through the year.
I'm glad you have a good job, and I think any job or any thing you do gets boreing at times, but when you think of the people out of work and hungry. Usualy when I get bored I count my blessings and most of the time they are the most.

"I hope you and your boyfriend are doing fine go with him and get really acquianted. But that was not my case. I was going to bussiness college in another city from my home town a girl friend ask me to doubledate with a boy just home from the army (WWI) and we went to a show, that was on the 10th of July and the 1st of Oct. we were married 47 yrs. (or until death did we part) and it wasn't always a bed of roses, we had our ups and downs."

I'm sure Mammaw and Packy did have their ups and downs, because everybody does, but they made sure that the grandkids never saw anything but the ups. What I remember most about their home, the home where I grew up, is the sense of love and security. It was a warm, safe place to be. Mammaw made it that way and Packy let it be. Ups and downs or not, they were good together.